On the Codicological Features of the Odessa Manuscript of the 16th–17th Centuries Slepchensky Commemoration Book

Abstract

The paper discusses specific features of personal name lists in Slepchensky commemoration book (kodik) from the monastery of St John the Precursor in North Macedonia (manuscript 1/116 of the Odessa National Scientific Library) based on the codicological features of this genre in the 16th–17th centuries. It is found that the commemoration book contains the beadroll of the lower clergy (diaconhood) as well as memorial records of laity men and women, represented by the original blocks and their copies. Establishing the ratio between those helps the author to substantiate the hypothesis that Odessa manuscript of the Slepchensky commemoration book 1/116 and the manuscript 1015 of another commemoration book (stored in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia, Bulgaria) were once a single unit performed in two copies. Over time, the handwritten notebooks of both copies were mixed, which is proved for the Slepchensky commemoration book. Thus, a new vector for the study of the Sofia manuscript 1015 opens, as it contains blocks of memorial records with the names of the higher clergy. Such blocks are twice declared in the initial part of the Odessa manuscript 1/116 yet absent in its main text. Similarities in basic handwriting and design of memorial notes in both manuscripts make the assumption of their initial unity even more convincing. If such is the case, the starting date of what was once a single manuscript should be specified not as 1544 (as it is indirectly read in manuscript 1/116) but about two decades later, after 1567, which is directly indicated in the Sofia manuscript 1015.